Tag Archives: Action

The Firm Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative.

It’s time to look as a retro Tom Cruise thriller. It’s always fun watching a film with him as the lead because you expect some craziness will ensue. This one was before he became more of an action star so he isn’t actually doing a lot of fighting here. Still, this film does have its share of action and intrigue as dealing with big business can be difficult. It’s an entertaining film that does have its share of issues, but still ends up being worth the watch.

The movie starts with Mitch graduating Law school and now everybody wants to hire him. He gets quite a lot of really great offers and ultimately decides to go with a small firm. The reason for this is they offer him a ton of money and there are a lot of nice perks to the job like a new car. It’s all pretty perfect so naturally the group turns out to be shady. Whenever someone tries to leave their firm they always have an “accident” which doesn’t end up well for them. Anyone who looks into the group is shot falls off of a boat. Either way the message here is that you are not getting out of The Firm alive. Will Mitch be the first to survive or will he fall as well?

The tricky part here is once you’re in then it’s hard to get out and Mitch went all in. He moved and has presumably started spending this money so there’s a lot on him at the moment. He then makes a huge mistake and has an affair even though he was just recently married to Abby. He was literally away from her for a single day and he couldn’t control himself? That was just pretty terrible and it made things awfully easy for the villains to blackmail him. It’s a lot harder to sympathize with Mitch after that because there was just no excuse for the cheating.

Mitch stumbled out of the gate so at least he was good at strategy. Near the end of the film he has to come up with a plan to fool both the FBI and the Firm and that’s no easy task. Fortunately he has the help of a lady named Tammy. After her friend was murdered by the Firm she’s decided to help take revenge on them. She is key to winning this battle as there’s no way Mitch could have done this on his own. She does a lot of the legwork and actual printing of the materials to get back at the villains. Abby also ends up helping although Mitch isn’t aware of this.

Unfortunately her part of the plot isn’t quite as good. Naturally the film decides to go with the trick of having her woo Avery to get into his apartment and steal the files. The whole thing’s pretty bad. In part it’s revenge on Mitch and in part just because she wants to do whatever she can to contribute. It’s still not the ideal plot though and I’d have preferred that she just brought a gun and kept Avery away with that. It would have been a good way to still get in the apartment and steal what was needed.

We also have a plot involving Mitch’s brother Ray. Ray is in jail for murdering someone. The film never goes into detail but Mitch mentions that it was a bar brawl that escalated so ideally let’s say that it was accidental. Mitch decides to bust Ray out of jail while he’s at it and comes up with an elaborate deal to do this. He certainly keeps the FBI busy throughout all of this. The Firm is definitely at its best when it’s juggling all of these plots. A lot is constantly happening during the film and all of the plots are connected which is definitely fun. The writing is pretty solid here and the film has good pacing. This is a thriller that will keep your attention from start to finish.

There are a lot of firm executives and they’re all pretty fun. Avery certainly gets the most screen time and he’s portrayed as a pretty nice guy but that’s really to hide how deep into the business he is. The guy’s just as complicit as everyone else even if he may not act the part. Standing by and doing nothing just makes you another villain. The film did well with the humor though. He has some nice scenes along with Mitch when convincing their first client. I also enjoyed the opening montage of Mitch getting offers from everyone. The first half of the film is pretty light with its tone and the film does a good job of balancing this. It never really gets too dark although there can be a lot of drama at different times.

This is one film that could have ended a lot sooner or gone over more smoothly if Mitch had just talked to Abby near the beginning though. Since they all might have been in danger then he should have let her know right away. By the time he went to a detective he already suspected something might have been up so he should have kept her in the loop. If anything by not telling her it made everything more suspicious like when she went to the office looking for him. He had no real reason to keep that a secret. As a main character Mitch really just wasn’t that good.

Overall, The Firm is a decent movie. It’s got enough holding it back where I wouldn’t be tempted to give it a re-watch at any point for quite a long time, but I still wouldn’t call it a bad film. It feels like there’s more they could have done with the concept though. If anything the first half feels like it could have gone on longer with Mitch not suspecting that anything was wrong with the organization before they started showing him stuff. If anything they make it a little too obvious that they’re crooked from the jump with constantly pressuring the characters into having kids, Abby can’t have a job, and the employees die right as Mitch gets there. It’s a bit convenient to get Mitch suspicious rather early. I’d also make Mitch a better character and switch Abby’s subplot. Those things would all help but if you do want a thriller film dealing with the Law then this is still a decent one to check out.

Overall 5/10

River City Ransom Review

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It’s time to look at the next NES title. Slowly but surely I’m cranking down on the rest of these NES games. At the time of writing this I have around 22 left I believe which is pretty good. At this rate I should have them all done by the end of June and then I’ll be eagerly awaiting Nintendo’s announcement that they are adding more. The other good news is that now I’m getting to the big games. Gone are the sport games, now I’m up for more of the plot type games or at least ones that have more in the way of gameplay.

I recently played River City Girls so it was pretty fun to go back and play the original. This is a game that has definitely aged quite well. First off we’ve actually got a plot with cutscenes here. The main character’s girlfriend was kidnapped by a bunch of thugs so the hero is off to save her. Along the way he will have to defeat 9 different gangs so it’s going to be a long day for the hero. Fortunately you can utilize just about everything you come across as a weapon and you also pass by a lot of malls to replenish your health.

One impressive thing about the game is that it has a full open world much like River City Girls. The game isn’t linear so you choose where you want to go first. Each area has a boss once you beat a lot of the minions and presumably once you beat all 9 then you will clear the game. Open world is a concept that has always been a lot of fun although there is still something to be said for a more linear experience. I wouldn’t say that either is better as they each have their positives but open world can be a little more dangerous if you have the potential to get stuck. I’ve had that happen to me in the past and it was pretty dicey. That actually happened in this game as well.

See, you don’t actually seem to trigger the boss if you bypass the henchmen. After I beat the first boss I figured, why not run to the school since that’s where the hostage is being kept right? So, I made a beeline over there including jumping down from a cliff and entering a passageway. I made it to the school, but nothing was happening even after I beat all of the henchmen a few times. So, I had to go back and clear the other levels but the problem is that you can’t actually go back once you cross the cliff. It’s an interesting design choice and one that seems a bit fatal depending on how fast you go through the game. Perhaps there is a way to get unstuck there and if so, kudos to whoever figured that out. I was going to go through the whole game but since it’s not really linear anyway and finding all of the bosses would take a while I figured I’d stop here.

There are few games where I would explore a whole labyrinth to find answers and one of those would be Metroid for honor. At this point that game’s personal. River City Girls took this game’s premise and really ran with it though. The best new addition that game had was a big map system. If you ever got lost you could consult that. This game has no map which is understandable since that would have been difficult back then but I would have definitely enjoyed it.

The combat is definitely a lot of fun here. You can really hit people with combo after combo, but the computers don’t just sit there and take it either. They actually block quite a lot which is pretty impressive and when they lunge at you it can be hard to react in time. You definitely have to stay on your guard. I really like the Baseball bat and highly recommend equipping it as much as possible. There are a ton of stores so you definitely want to buy food at them. Not only does it increase your health but it can also increase all of your other stats like attack power and speed.

The graphics are definitely pretty solid. I like the character designs for the various characters. They look tough as you’d expect such a character to be. These guys are clearly not messing around and that’s a good thing. Whatever threat comes up, the hero is ready to squash it. The soundtrack is also pretty catchy. It’s nice and fast paced and definitely gets you into the moment.

Overall, River City Ransom is definitely a pretty fun game. The fact that it has a real story is pretty cool and the gameplay is pretty solid. There’s a good amount of content here to playing through the game could last you an hour or two. The only thing holding is back is really the lack of a map feature and the point of no return. Just make sure you take out all of the goons in each area without skipping any and then you should be fine. Slow and steady wins the race as always.

Overall 6/10

Dynasty Warriors 3 Review

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It’s time to look at one of the original Dynasty Warrior games. I played DN 2 a while back, but it’s certainly been a while since I was able to get back into the franchise so this was nostalgic for sure. I enjoy beat em up games a lot because it’s fun to just mow down armies and also attack strategically. The actual stories of the games can be a bit on the dull side for me though. Sengoku Basara the anime did this era the most justice in my opinion by making it really compelling. Still, the gameplay is enough to keep things going and the title does its best by adding in some fun cutscenes during the game.

So I picked one of the warriors from Wu to play with here. The goal is to unite China so I quickly got on that. The campaign is around 7 levels long. The levels can range from 30-90 minutes with how much time you have to complete it. One of them left me with only about 2 minutes left which was pretty stressful. These levels really don’t mess around and while 90 minutes may sound like a whole lot of time you can easily start getting close to that. You can play the levels aggressively and chase the commanders or you can play the long game and whittle away at the enemy forces. You’ve got options here and that’s part of the fun of the genre. How you play is really up to you.

This is one of the few series where Normal mode can actually be incredibly difficult. I did that one for the first few levels and it felt like hard mode. Not only were the enemy soldiers incredibly powerful but the timer was really not on your side. I would cut it extremely close until I lowered the settings. It is pretty exhilarating if you have time though. One big difference here compared to a game like Fire Emblem Heroes is that you aren’t an invincible superhero here to save the day. You can’t just mow through enemies too quickly and in the meantime your teammates are probably getting wrecked. As a result you do need a plan and usually that means stopping all of the sub generals and then going for the big ones. I also recommend going for the enemy camps since if you don’t blow those up early they can keep calling for backup infinitely. That’s a really good way for your side to lose morale so you have to do whatever you can to put a stop to this.

Another strategy is to go for the enemy boss right off the bat. Some levels prevent this by not having him show up til later on but in others you can literally just run up to him if you’re feeling brave. The downside to this naturally is that you will be outnumbered. It can take you around 2-3 minutes of nonstop running to get there so there’s no way backup will arrive in time and the rest of the enemy generals will follow you. When this works it is quite satisfying though so I recommend trying it out at least once. You need to make sure you really understand the gameplay to pull this off though.

This is a 3D beat em up title so you are naturally going to be fighting a lot. You’ve got your standard attack, power move, super attack, and block button. A really handy combo is 2 standard attacks into a power move which will stun the opponent and then you can do another attack. I recommend saving the super attack until the enemy lands a hit on you. It’s a guaranteed combo breaker and will let you get back on offense. Additionally if you are low on health and really need to get out of there then this is definitely your best option. There is always a pot with some healing items next to each camp so run there if you need too. You will definitely be doing quite a lot of running throughout the game.

If you’re low on health but don’t want to run away then just remember that your super attack meter auto charges once you’re close to dying. You can run around a bit to buy time and in a few seconds use another super attack. If you do this a lot then you should be able to survive even when low on health. Just be careful because the enemies may land a lucky shot here or there and one hit could finish you off pretty quickly.

The graphics here are definitely pretty solid. The game has a very retro PS2 feel to it and that’s in a good way. There are more cutscenes here than I remember in 2 which is nice because it makes the story feel a bit more grand. The soundtrack is quite excellent with a ton of rock themes everywhere. The series has always done a good job of getting that “cool” factor across which is important. The music pumps you up for the battles that lie ahead.

This game also has a ton of content. In general I think beat em up games always do a really good job of including a ton of content in their games. After beating a campaign you can always jump right into the thick of it with another character. Additionally you can replay old characters to strengthen your fighters and obtain some items to boost them as well. If you do play the story mode on higher difficulties it is almost mandatory that you do this or your character simply won’t be strong enough to do much of anything in the final levels. The level ups here make a huge difference in the long run.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors 3 is a very fun game. While the story may not be super excited as it feels like you’re treading on familiar ground, the gameplay is as solid as ever. Beat em ups are just a fun genre to mess around in and back in the day I spent a lot of time doing just that in the Bleach PS3 game. Now I don’t stick around with games for nearly as long but if you have time then this is a solid title to pick up. I’m sure you would probably start with a newer title though and I definitely wouldn’t blame you there. I look forward to playing more of the new ones. At the time of this review I’m actually playing a newer installment in the series so a review for that will be showing up soon.

Overall 7/10

Final Fantasy VII Remake Review

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It’s time to take a look at 2020’s Game of the Year title. I’ve been waiting many years for Final Fantasy VII Remake to come out and it was all worth it. You can feel the polish and development time that went into this title. It’s easily the most theatrical game I’ve played since FF XIII-2 and it is fair to say that this one is even higher budget. You could make a case for this being the best Square game yet. I would have to ultimately have it top FF XIII-2 and Kingdom Hearts 2 as the best RPG. It’s really just a definitive title and one that has a ton of content. After beating the game which took around 24 hours, that’s just the tip of the content here.

So the story starts by introducing us to Avalanche. They are a group of terrorists who are trying to blow up various Mako reactors across the planet. The reactors are controlled by a company known as Shinra which basically owns the planet. While this does make life a lot better for many, Shinra excludes the poor who have to live under a dome. Avalanche intends to bring the world back to how it used to be by blowing everything up. There will be a lot of casualties but the idea is that it will ultimately make the planet a better place. To this end, the group has hired a mercenary named Cloud. The guy’s an Ex-SOLDIER which means that he is pretty tough. SOLDIERS in this universe are people who were bathed in Mako and trained by Shinra to be ultimate fighting warriors. Cloud’s just in it for the money but sooner or later he’s going to have to make a decision. Keep on helping Avalanche and fighting Shinra or going his own way.

The plot is ever changing in just about every RPG but especially in something like Final Fantasy. That plot really describes the first few hours and then things change quite a lot. Part of the fun is seeing all of those story details so I won’t go much farther than that. As it adapts the content you’re used to, you will notice one new subplot involving some ghosts that keep flying around and messing with people. It’s a pretty interesting plot and the game gives you a lot of foreshadowing that this will be important. The game goes in some pretty interesting directions by the end. I can’t say much more than that, but what I will say is that I’m not even more hyped for the sequel. It’s really a superb ending in every way.

The climax is pretty great. You certainly have a lot of boss fights to sift through and great visuals. It’s also pretty challenging so make sure you’re ready. I lost the fight the first time so I had to regroup and barely clutched it out the second time. That’s one of the fun parts about the game. There are a lot of times where you will be at the edge of your seat throughout a boss because you’re so low on health and it feels good to get the win. A lot of the battles came down to a last hit situation. It’s a tough game that doesn’t feel unfair. You can always polish up your fundamentals in order to have an easier fight. I didn’t notice many locations for grinding EXP but you could also do that if needed. This is probably the first RPG in a while where I didn’t do any grinding this time. There just wasn’t a need to do so for me.

Some bosses did take around 30-40 minutes as a result though. It’s the price of being low level but it was worth it. I admit that if I had lost any of those fights that would have been unfortunate though. I came really close so many times. My advice is to always make sure you have a bunch of Phoenix Downs and potions. Keep in mind that you can’t use any items unless you have an ATB gauge loaded up so you may also want to equip Revival earrings as well just in case. Those activate automatically so you don’t need to worry about not using the item in time by mistake.

As expected the graphics here are absolutely top tier and same for the audio. It feels like a full movie experience and this game could easily pass itself off as a movie if needed. You could stitch these cutscenes together and just add a few new ones for fights and it could be ready for theaters right away. In particular a game like this always needs a great opening and FF VII delivers absolutely. Then we’ve got the soundtrack which is over 6 hours long according to Youtube’s playlist. That’s pretty crazy. I love to see all the variety here and the various remixes of the classic themes are intense. One of them even seemed to borrow from Advent Children which was a really nice touch.

I haven’t really talked about the gameplay but it is naturally pretty great. It’s a real time 3D hack and slash as you try to destroy the opponents in front of you. One change here that makes it a bit more like an RPG is that you can’t use any items unless you have enough meter which effectively makes it “your turn” to do an action. It makes the battles more intense because you can always choose to use a super attack, use a summon, use an item, or use a spell. Each one costs a spell bar and the only way to build it back up is to attack an enemy with normal attacks. What this means is that if you’re on low health and you just used a bar on an attack, it’ll be a little bit before you can use a potion. Keep this in mind when planning what you will do.

In most battles there will be 3 of you in the party so you can switch to them at any point. You can also just give them orders like which attack to use. For the most part they will never use any super attacks or spells unless you tell them to so when you switch over to them they will probably have a full bar. I recommend telling them to do something whenever they charge up. Also if you have it, give one of them the auto cure spell as soon as possible because that’s a spell they can use on their own whenever you’re low on health. The parry technique is also very handy here. Try to block and counter as often as possible because it builds up the opponent’s stagger meter pretty quickly and can put them in a pressured state. There are a lot of nuances to the gameplay but you’ll pick it up pretty quickly.

There is also the occasional level that uses different gameplay. I always think it’s pretty impressive when a game adds a new gameplay style even if it will only be used for a level or two. A good example of this is the motorcycle levels. There are only two of them in the game but they’re both a ton of fun. It’s a nice change of pace and as I also love racing games what beats mixing the two up like this right? In Advent Children Cloud was definitely a really good expert on a bike so it’s good to see him get to use those skills again here.

As mentioned, the length here is pretty good. It took me around 24 hours to beat the main campaign and that’s considering that I didn’t really do any side quests. The closest to that was when I decided to quickly take a ride on the slide at the park. Beyond that I just played the game straight through and never looked back. I can also see the Platinum Trophy for this game being pretty difficult so that’ll take time too. Even without a post game this would be worth the 60 bucks and with all of the extra content it goes without saying. It’ll be very difficult for any game to take this one down even in the next few years unless they suddenly announce the next Super Smash. Final Fantasy VII Remake did what all Final Fantasy games tend to achieve, it has once again set the bar higher for all AAA titles.

The game has a ton of highs and no real lows so what was the best part? Well, the best part of the game to me would actually be the opening act. Everything up til they destroyed the first Mako Reactor was my absolute favorite part of the game. In part I think it’s because it was the intro so I was still absorbing everything as this really fun movie. It’s all incredibly impressive and while the game never lets up, it’s hard to forget such a beginning. I also liked Cloud’s personality quite a lot in the intro with how direct he can be. The guy was pretty fed up with everything at that point so it made for a lot of great banter between him and Barret. Of course, they had a lot of great scenes after that as well like running up the stairs to the top floor. That segment is great so I hope you don’t choose the elevator there. In general the first act just feels like a really solid mystery thriller. I also liked Cloud’s first confrontation with Reno and Rude. Considering how terrible they looked in Advent Children it’s nice to see how they used to be fairly powerful.

There aren’t a lot of boss fights against human type opponents so enjoy them when they show up. From fighting another SOLDIER to taking on a Shinra boss, it’s always hype fighting another human. These battles really test your knowledge of the parry system as well as your pure fundamentals. You’ll need them if you’re going to take them out. In particular the fight on the roof against the gun wielder was a lot of fun. The fight against Rude was also a lot of fun with the various hand to hand techniques he would use against you.

The cast is also pretty great as expected. Cloud’s basically a perfect lead who does whatever he can to help his friends out. It’s also pretty nice to see his character arc here now that you know the events of Crisis Core and Advent Children so you’ve already got a pretty broad scope of what he’s been through/will go through. Tifa is also a lot of fun as always and tries to be a moral compass for the group. Barret’s probably been helped the most by this remake as I didn’t really notice the guy so much in the original but here he is one of the starring characters. He gets a lot of great moments throughout the game and I really like all of his enthusiasm for the cause. This guy definitely believes in saving the planet whole heartedly even if Cloud thinks he is crazy.

Aerith is more of a mixed bag for me though. She keeps a lot of secrets throughout the game and is intentionally not helpful. Talking a little more early on would have helped out quite a bit. I’m sure she has her own reasons for doing all of this of course, but until we see what those are she can be more annoying than helpful. It doesn’t help that in a fight she’s my least favorite ally to have. She’s good for aerial enemies but beyond that give me Tifa and Barret any day.

The other fighters from Avalanche are cool as well. I’m not a fan of Wedge and he’s mostly there just to give the group more of an unguarded fellow. Biggs is a solid member who seems like your average soldier. He’s got a sense of humor and is a nice guy. I liked having him around. Then you have Jesse who gets a big role here. She’s fun and charismatic although based on some dialogue from the other members she does like stringing people along. Cloud doesn’t fall for it, but this is a bit dubious so it’ll keep her from passing Biggs here. There are a bunch of other supporting characters of course but those are the main ones.

For the villains, well Sephiroth is awesome as always whenever he shows up to mess with Cloud. A lot of the time you have to decide if he is really there or if it’s just Cloud’s head messing with him. Get ready for a lot of seizures. Cloud had a lot of those in Advent Children but he usually didn’t get them quite so much in the OG timeline so you have to wonder what’s affecting him so much. The SHINRA vice president Rufus is a lot of fun here. I didn’t care for him much in AC, but here he seems like a pretty tough boss and in general just a guy that you don’t want to mess with. The other SHINRA leads are less memroable but serve their purpose as good villains. The mad scientist is more on the iffy side. He’d be my least favorite villain if not for the Don also being around. That guy was definitely the weakest one.

Reno and Rude are solid villains as well. Despite all their tough talk and how they act like they have morals they still do everything their boss tells them to do so I still see them as villains. There’s also another SOLDIER who shows up at one point which was interesting. I thought all of the SOLDIERS were already dead by this point outside of Cloud so I wonder how he will play into the sequels or if other SOLDIERS will show up. I guess it makes sense there would be more, we just usually don’t show them. Assuming they are all First Class level that will make for some pretty fun boss fights soon. Somehow I doubt any of them would be quite as strong as Sephiroth, Genesis, or Zack so Cloud should be okay though.

Overall, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a superb game. It is excellent in all aspects and there is not a single weak point to be found in the game. The gameplay is stellar, the cutscenes are out of this world, and the soundtrack is quite dynamic. When you mix all of this together then what you have is an amazing package that ism’t likely going to be defeated anytime soon. I’m hoping the wait for the next installment isn’t too long though. Now that we have all of the character models and assets (Aside from new characters who need to show up) I like to think that we could have part 2 by late 2021 but most likely I guess it would be late 2022. That sounds like ages away though. Ah well, in the meantime it’ll let us discuss the ending a lot more. I’m looking forward to reading the Reddit theories and watching the Youtube ones.

Overall 9/10

Speed 2: Cruise Control Review

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It’s time to look at a film about trying to stop someone from ramming a big boat into an island. As a film in the Speed series you’re definitely expecting a lot of destruction and this film doesn’t disappoint in that regard. At the same time, there is so much destruction here by the end that it almost becomes a bit of a parody by the end. The amount of people dying off screen has to be enormous and the main characters barely seem to care. I really feel like part of this was meant to be a parody at different moments and the film ultimately switched gears at some point in production.

The movie starts with Officer Alex getting involved in a high speed chase to stop someone in a truck. Alex succeeds after pulling off some big stunts as his girlfriend Annie shows up upon failing her driving test. She reminds Alex that she broke up with the lead from the first film because of his dangerous stunts so Alex should have told her he was a cop. He had apparently been lying throughout their whole relationship which isn’t a great start. He decides to deflect the issue by asking her out to a cruise. Annie agrees and once there Alex intends to propose but Annie doesn’t seem receptive to the idea. The plans are all thrown out the window when a terrorist shows up and assumes direct control of the ship. Alex must stop this guy fast or everybody is about to die.

So let’s get this out of the way first. The romance in this film is pretty bad. Annie has a legitimate reason to be very upset with Alex here because now she can’t trust anything he’s said to her. If he’s been lying all this time about his job then he could have been lying about other stuff too. Ultimately she is still willing to give him a chance, but then he starts to get pushy about marriage right away. This is the absolute worst time for that considering what she just learned. Alex is also upfront about the fact that he lied to her because he knew she would break up with him. He doesn’t seem particularly apologetic about it either and actually gets pretty defensive the whole time. So yeah…the romance is pretty bad here. The film also throws in a kid getting a crush on Alex for some reason.

What you’re here for is the action though and Speed 2 delivers on it. Ocean based action is not nearly as exciting as on the ground, but it works well enough. There are a bunch of scenes where you can barely see anything through the smoke, fire, or darkness though so those scenes don’t work quite as well though. The movie has a ton of other action scenes that are well lit though so you’re still in for a good amount of it. The movie rarely gives you any time to relax between action segments so you can rest assured that something is always happening. It may not always make a lot of sense but that’s another story. As long as you like action that should keep the film in the green.

Romance aside, Alex seems like a reasonable character. He’s very knowledgeable and you can see why he would make for a good cop. The guy is quick on his feet and always ready for the next challenge. He does a good job in most of the situations and doesn’t just believe the computer screens so easily. The guy does mess up a few times though like not shooting John in the corridor. There’s almost no point to pointing a gun at someone if you’re still going to let them fiddle with a computer and continue to move. At least shoot the computer or the leg. If you don’t want to murder someone, a shot to the leg or an arm will never destroy them in a film anyway so that’s the move. Later on there’s also an odd scene where Alex tracks down the villain and Annie and instead of immediately going for the villain he takes time to console Annie and share a romantic moment. John really should have just kicked him off the plane during this moment to be honest.

As for Annie, she’s an okay character but I had my issues with her too. She’s a little too forgiving of Alex’s antics and does complain a lot. When she ship starts going down she quickly tells Alex not to look into it because they’re on vacation. She’s more interested in him sticking around like a civilian than getting to the bottom of this which is really not good. She’s definitely not interested in being a hero and not everyone is going to be one, but you shouldn’t stop someone else from trying to save the day.

Then we have John who is a decent villain at best. He’s a little more crazy than interesting at times though like with the leeches. I suppose the strategy apparently works, but it’s still pretty disturbing. He gets by on a ton of luck throughout the film though. The scene of him taking out the captain may even make you laugh at how absurd the whole thing is. The Captain keeps walking into every hit and acting confused the whole time instead of yelling like a sane person or backing up. If he took a step back he would have been okay. Why didn’t he even try fighting back? The whole scene was pretty crazy and I had to shake my head at what I saw there. Then nobody has any security cameras on the ship so they don’t see John running around. Nobody sees him moving on the ship and nobody changed any of the passwords after this guy was let go. Even when he takes down a doorman nobody finds out. John’s more annoying than anything. At least he gets his classic laugh a lot.

The ending is definitely crazy but I’ll give the film props for not making it a perfect 10/10 ending for the heroes I suppose. There is a ton of collateral damage as the heroes are just unable to stop this guy. He rams his boat through a bunch of buildings and ultimately he takes out two ships. It’ll take ages for the city to rebuild so in a way the villain got the last laugh here. The final explosion with the second ship is the most out of the blue part of the film though. You’ll see what I mean when you watch the film. You’ll feel bad for it because those guys were just minding their own business.

The side characters are reasonable here. The girl who can’t hear has an odd plot point but for the most part she doesn’t take away from the film. Her parents are pretty annoying the whole time though and their redemption arc is pretty rushed. The members of the crew are all pretty terrible though. How did they not notice John intentionally pressing a lot of buttons as he pretended to be drunk? That was their worst moment since a good portion of the film could have been avoided or changed a bit otherwise. It will stretch your disbelief a bit. They also give Alex a tough time throughout the movie even when he is helping them out. Can’t they just get out of his way and let him do his thing? Even right up to the end they’re second guessing him and telling him to go with the rest of the crew. At least the camera guy was doing his best to help out.

Overall, Speed 2 is a reasonable film. A lot of the film can’t really be taken too seriously but it holds up as a thriller that really doesn’t give you a moment to relax. Something is always happening even if it isn’t quite as intense as the first one. The scenes that are poorly lit just can’t give you the same rush because you can’t see what is happening. Additionally I’m not a big fan of water both in real life and films. It’s just not a very interesting element to fight against so the heroes swimming around can get old. We still do have our gunfights to compensate for this though. If you’re looking for a good action film to check out then this one works. It’s pretty much got everything you could want out of a thriller.

Overall 6/10

D.Gray-man Hallow Review

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It’s time to take a look to the sequel to the original D. Gray-Man anime. It hasn’t been so long since I saw the original so it’s nice to see the characters return. This was around the part where the manga started to go off the rails though with the artwork taking a dip and it never quite reached the parts that the original show adapted. Perhaps it would work better in anime format? Well, I can definitely make sense of the events a lot better and you can follow the action really well. Unfortunately, the show is not able to salvage these arcs to the point where it can hold a candle to the first show.

The show has 13 episodes and mainly focuses on two arcs. First up we get a mini arc adding a new kid to the cast. Allen and Kanda are sent in to investigate a possible new exorcist who can possess Akuma. Considering what a bother those enemies have been over the years this would definitely be a very valuable asset to have in the field. The heroes will have to hurry though because the Akuma are also after this kid. It’s a pretty reasonable first 3 episodes. I don’t really care for the kid but it did feel like the original days a bit. It also gave us a chance to see most of the characters and some quick fights.

After that we focus on the Alma Karma arc. This is definitely the darkest arc in the series as we see the shady experiments that the order runs on the Exorcist candidates or clones that can be disposed of. In the present we find out that Alma was actually kept alive and the Earl decides to use him to help awaken Allen as the 14th and possibly eliminate Kanda in the process. With the Order acting so questionably the heroes will have to decide if they really are on the right side.

Finally, we end with the debut of Apocryphos as one of the best villains in the series. He attacks and Allen’s arm resonates with the character which makes it difficult for him to stay with the order. At this point Allen is the host for quite a lot of beings so he has to go on the run. The Exorcists are given the order to destroy him so we will have to see which of his allies will remain loyal and which ones will decide to destroy him. Either way Allen better keep his guard up.

Right from the start Hallow positions itself as a much more intense take on the series. It gets quite violent as now even the Akuma all bleed like living things. It’s always been an odd take to have the monsters all bleed like this and many titles do this off and on. How I see it you should just keep the Akuma hollow. The series goes into the next level with this during the Karma arc though which is what ultimately holds the series back the most. It just gets way too dark with the kids effectively being murdered over and over again with their healing factors keeping them alive.

It also makes the Order look completely evil to be condoning these experiments. The Earl even points out that the Order seems to be just as evil as the Noah. It’s also ultimately pointless since the Earl has control over all Akuma so these experiments just ended up helping the villains even more. Even if they were effective it wouldn’t make these decisions any better. The fact that all of the higher ups are in on this makes it worse because even if you like the main Exorcists you have to now acknowledge that they are working for an evil organization. All the good they are doing is just protecting the villains above this. The arc goes too far in making you dislike the Order because now you have no one to root for.

The season does its best to get back on track after this. The final arc with Apocryphos is a lot more enjoyable and feels more like the classic adventures. We get to see Tyki Mikk and Road appear again to fight off the new villain. Apocryphos has a pretty great design and he can actually fight which is important. Allen gets framed and the episodes are pretty suspenseful with solid action and a good story. It also leads us to a pretty solid end for the series. The second last episode probably works better as an ending than the actual finale but either way I was satisfied with the ending. The manga hasn’t been super consistent since then so I don’t really think there is enough material for another season but eventually we’ll probably get another installment.

Allen continues to be a strong lead here. He’s doing his best to fight off the 14th and the total corruption of the Order. He’s in a tough spot here since no matter what he does someone tends to get upset. He is a full fledged Exorcist at this point though and can even hold his own against Kanda which is important. You still get the feeling that he won’t be beating the Noah anytime soon but who knows, maybe he could take them at this point. He just needs some allies because 13-1 are not good odds. Right now Allen has handled every situation admirably.

Then you have Kanda who definitely got a really big role in this series. He was rather mean to Karma throughout so you’ll feel bad for the kid. In the present he didn’t handle the situation well at all until Allen knocked some sense into him. Kanda seems to have mellowed out by the end of the series so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles himself in future arcs. He’s still a fun character regardless. The guy isn’t as heroic as some of the others, but doesn’t pretend to be either. He does what he wants at this point although some of his tough rhetoric doesn’t land since he is still working for the Order after everything they’ve done to him.

Lenalee and Lavi don’t get a whole lot to do here. Lenalee’s abilities still look really cool so I’m hoping she will get a real fight soon. Lavi gets kidnapped but that’s about it for his role. He’s pretty strong willed so hopefully he’ll come out of this okay. Cross gets a minor role as well, but he looks pretty terrible. So much for being a General and getting a lot of hype right? When it was clutch time he folded like a trading card.

Link is one of the new characters and I actually liked him a lot more here than I did in the anime. While he did start out as a watchdog for Allen he ultimately did gain some real personality. He made the wrong choice in stopping Allen during the fight with the thirds, but he made the right choice against Apocryphos. He may not have been the strongest fighter around, but his stats were still pretty good and he seemed like a nice guy. He was just in a little over his head.

Timothy is not nearly as interesting. He can possess ghosts which is cool but his personality isn’t all that great. I think it’ll be a while before he matures more and becomes a character you can root for. I’ll give him props for fighting valiantly later on though. If he keeps this up for another arc then he should rise up. We get a new Noah member in this show named Wisely. Technically there are a bunch of others but most of them haven’t done much yet. This guy gets some hype because he did take out Kanda in one hit which is hard to do. I think he should make for a very enjoyable Noah member.

The Millennium Earl appears a lot here and we finally see more of his human form. Unfortunately it does destroy his character. You can’t take him seriously when you see his human form constantly crying. He also seems like less and less of a fighter every time he appears and his obsession with the 14th could very well ruin all of his plans. The guy doesn’t seem to have a great plan laid out so I can see why his followers are getting very frustrated at this point. He may ruin it for all of them.

Road is a fun enough villain as always. She doesn’t do a lot here but does like messing with the heroes aside from Allen. Tyki Mikk gets a good role as he tries to fight Apocryphos even if he isn’t successful. He’s always gotten more personality than most of the other Noah members and that continues to be true here. He’s just a fun guy to have around. Then you have Apocryphos who is pretty great as I mentioned. It’s excellent to have a third party villain here especially since he seems to be a very radical “good guy” who just wants to protect the Innocence. It seems like he’ll murder anyone who gets in his way and if he is the ultimate enemy of the Noah it makes you wonder where the Exorcists stand. I want to see more of this guy.

Finally we have Karma. He’s a very tragic character since he started out very happy and then everything eventually broke him. By the end of the series he was a total villain. His whole reincarnation plot was a bit wacky but beyond that he got a cool super form and did give us solid action scenes. Battles between fighters with healing factors can always get pretty intense. I liked Karma. He may have cracked in the end, but he did a good job of making sure he saved Kanda and held out hope for as long as possible.

One thing that’s pretty noticeable with this show is that it throws in some random humor to try and get your mind off the serious stuff. To an extent most shows or movies will do this as throwing in a more light hearted moment helps to cut the tension of a dark one. This show just isn’t very subtle with it so it can be pretty jarring. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed it to the extent as I did with this show. A character might have just been stabbed or in trouble and suddenly he will have a comic relief face or a deadpan moment where they make a joke. It happens a lot in this season and so it seems to me like the show knew it was getting really dark. It can be a bit off putting but not the kind of thing that will hurt the score or anything. Maybe if I really liked the dark stuff I would mind more.

In D. Gray-Man as I pointed out in my original TV show review there is still one element that is hard to ignore. The whole story doesn’t really make sense because the Akuma should have just won by now. The show continually points out that the Exorcists are completely outmatched in numbers and power. A single Level 4 was able to take out almost all of the strongest Exorcists and the Earl can mass produce hundreds of them. Why has he not just stormed the base at this point? The only reasonable explanation is that the Earl wants to keep the Exorcists alive but then why launch attacks on them in general? Everything he does seems half hearted.

In most titles the heroes are outmatched at least a bit but in this series it is incredibly one sided. The heroes really have absolutely no chance of victory which is just odd to see. When watching the show you know that they can’t win and so unless the heroes get a massive power up then it’s all futile. One episode here even illustrates that as the Earl sends the Noah in and they absolutely crush all of the Exorcists, but decide to spare most of them for kicks. The heroes are definitely lucky but surviving purely on your opponent’s whims is not a good spot to be in.

The animation is definitely solid though. We get a lot of striking colors and the dark color palette stands out. You’re always able to see what is happening and a lot of the visuals are adapted really well. I like how the feathers were implemented and Link’s various attacks were cool. It was consistently great during the show. Then you’ve also got a pretty solid soundtrack from the show. The opening for Hallow is also very catchy. I’ve listened to it quite a few times and the images are also solid. It definitely sets up the atmosphere quite well.

I’d say the best thing I can attribute to Hallow is that it is very interesting. At this point in the series there are quite a lot of pieces moving on the board which makes for a lot of interesting plotlines. You certainly won’t be bored during any episode. At most the final one has some slow scenes with the flashbacks but the rest of the series is very fast paced with something always happening. It’s definitely a positive for long running titles like this one because the longer they go on the more plots you have to juggle. With only 13 episodes Hallow definitely had to keep going at full speed.


Overall, D. Gray-Man Hallow wasn’t exactly the sequel I think it could have been. It goes too far in trying to be violent and gritty as it gets a lot darker than the original series. The first series could also be pretty dark but more in terms of atmosphere than just giving everyone a hard time throughout. If you cut away the Karma arc then the title gets considerably better. To an extent I suppose a show can only do so much with the source material but that’s where deviating can come in handy. Regardless if you’re a big fan of the original anime then you should definitely check this sequel out. It is still following all of the classic characters and continues the story so you want to see where things are going.

Overall 5/10

The Bodyguard Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative.

It’s time to look at a 90’s action film. You can definitely rest assured that there is a good amount of action here. The film’s a bit on the long side which isn’t really an issue but it did seem to challenge the writers a bit. In particular there is one plot that seems to go in circles more times than it should and I’ll go into more detail on that later. This is a solid film but one that could have been a whole lot better. Regardless, it’s a good way to spend 2 hours.

The film starts off with introducing us to Frank. He’s the best in the biz when it comes to being a bodyguard but he doesn’t do a lot of work anymore. That all changes when an old friend shows up and asks him to bodyguard a famous celebrity known as Rachel. Her plight is that someone has been sending her a ton of death threats and her life may be in danger. Frank doesn’t want to take the job when he sees how nobody is taking this seriously and Rachel is clearly not going to play ball. Ultimately he decides to take the gig though and it could be his toughest one yet.

There are a few things here that makes everyone look terrible. For starters, nobody actually told Rachel that she was in danger. Yes, all of the threats and such have been hidden from her, even the note left on her bed showing that the guy broke into her home. The agents figure this will just make her upset. Yeah, it’ll make her upset and that’s the point. She should know that someone is after her life. It makes her position of thinking that Frank is not necessary a bit more understandable at least in the beginning. I do think Frank also needs to take some blame here for not making sure she knew. Once he finds out he says that someone should tell her…so the guy in charge of hiding this from her claims he will do it. Naturally he does not.

Frank had no reason to trust this guy and should have told Rachel personally. My issue with Rachel though is how she acts after she knows about this. She takes it well at first until another threat comes in. Then she tells Frank that she will take it seriously and listen to him…until she doesn’t. They have a quick affair and then he pulls back thinking that this won’t be professional. To get back at him she decides to put her life in jeapordy on purpose with parties and vanishing for a few hours. She’s also putting her son in danger by doing stuff like this but doesn’t seem to notice. After more events happen she goes back to saying she will play ball…and then she rebels again in the final scenes.

Rachel’s probably got to be one of the most annoying characters I’ve seen in a while. If someone tries to murder you multiple times you’d think that you would take it very seriously at that point. Not doing so just doesn’t seem like something a reasonable person would do. I guess that’s the problem with Rachel, she doesn’t seem like a reasonable character. She’s very extreme throughout the film and while that may work in some settings, it certainly doesn’t here.

She’s surrounded by a bunch of sketchy characters as well although none of their lives are in danger so you get it a little more. Her agent in particular just loves being famous so he wants to put her life at risk as much as possible to get more records. The driver is a pretty good character. He gets with the program very quickly so I definitely appreciated that.

Rachel’s old bodyguard Tony is also reasonable. He really was doing a fine job of being a bouncer before Frank showed up so you can understand his apprehension. Also when Frank let his feelings get the best of him again and dashed off Tony was the only one to protect Rachel from someone trying to assault her. So he did step up when it counted and always did act in Rachel’s best interests. I would make the case that he may have even been a better character than Frank. I had my issues with Frank.

Before I dive into him, I have to say that Nicki’s also a pretty bad character. She seems very jealous and petty right off the bat and that only gets worse as the film goes on. It’s hard to have any real sympathy for her because of how far it all goes. Like Frank said, she should have just pursued a different career if this was going to make her jealousy levels go higher and higher. Working for the paparazzi isn’t for everyone. It’s a thankless job where you’ll be treated badly more often than not.

All right, now it’s time for Frank. He’s clearly great at his job and has a lot of skills so I won’t argue against that. What holds him back as a character is how he lets his emotions get the better of him all the time. Even starting the affair with Rachel was something he shouldn’t have done. He’s on a mission right now so that’s a clear conflict of interest and it makes him look unprofessional. Starting the affair and then suddenly cutting it off doesn’t make him look any better either. It makes him appear wishy washy. Then he takes out his frustration on innocent people like the random guy in the kitchen. Frank beats him down pretty thoroughly and you know it’s because of Rachel which makes the whole thing even worse.

Throw in the fact that he forgot to actually make sure Rachel knew the risks early on and his constant complaining and you have a lead who is not all that reliable. He can still fight so he does act as a solid bodyguard but he needs to keep a lid on those emotions. He’ll never be the next 007 or Ethan Hunt if he stays at this level. The ending of the film hopefully shows that he has some promise as he seems ready for the mission. You could probably make a pretty good sequel to this movie because the premise allows for many different stories.

All right, so for some positives now we have the fight scenes. Those are handled pretty well when they occur. Surprisingly we never get a true hand to hand fight with the villains though. Most of it is about dodging possible attempts on Rachel’s life or dealing with randoms. So it may be more accurate to say that the action scenes are good. The film is also pretty interesting which is important for a long title like this. You’ll be interested in what’s going on the whole time. There are also a few twists about the main villain which is neat. I think you’ll probably suspect something is up early with how they show the villain and how weak he seems to be, but it’s still a pretty solid twist anyway.

Overall, The Bodyguard delivers on the action and intensity. It’s a long film and does feel like a true blockbuster. The character cast is pretty weak though. Rachel really doesn’t co-operate as much as she should and Frank is way too emotional to be an agent. One more scene to show why he wasn’t cut out at this is when at night he decides to “subtly” play Rachel’s music on max volume in his home theater. Now he can’t hear anything going outside and neither can any of the security guards. Considering he was doing this on the sneak it didn’t really make a lot of sense and if the villain had been around that would have ended really badly. Don’t hire this guy as your bodyguard.

Overall 6/10

The Medusa Touch Review

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It’s time to look at a detective film. This one’s definitely a mystery that as it goes on you have to decide if the cause is supernatural. The movie has an interesting premise but it starts to drop the ball by the end and you get a little more annoyed with the characters. The flashbacks aren’t nearly as interesting as the present story either which doesn’t help the movie’s case since that is probably over half of the title.

The movie starts with Inspector Brunel showing up to an apartment after someone named Morlar. was murdered by a Darth Vader statue being smashed into him multiple times. The assailant is unclear and nobody heard anything because the land lord was busy watching his TV at max volume. Brunel isn’t happy about this but he decides not to dwell on it for now. He heads to Dr. Zonfield who was seeing Morlar as a patient for a while. Brunel figures this will help him determine if Morlar had any enemies and if this was a random crime or not. What he learns is that Morlar was fairly disturbed and believed he had supernatural powers.

As Zonfield recounts the various events to Brunel we see how Morlar used his powers in the past. He murdered quite a lot of people by moving cars and planes to ensure their demise. The guy didn’t really like people in general so he was always pretty quick to use his abilities. Zonfield was convinced they were fake even as Morlar continued to escalate his crimes over and over again. Surely they were all coincidences but Brunel begins to think they could have been real. Personally, upon hearing this fantastic story I wouldn’t have been convinced either. Mainly because most of these stories are just word of mouth so it’s hard to believe such a thing. For all we know Morlar was lying about most of those events.

As you can imagine though, the powers are quite real. I won’t reveal who finally had enough of this and tried to destroy Morlar, but they did a lousy job. Look, if you’re going to murder someone who has such powerful abilities then wouldn’t you make sure of it? The injuries would have been lethal to an ordinary man, but this person believed Morlar wasn’t ordinary so you’d expect a more thorough job. It was certainly convenient for the main characters I suppose.

The climax is also a bit tiring as a result since we see Morlar murdering just about everyone at a church and nobody wants to do anything. They’re all just watching and wondering what’s going on. The cops don’t want to listen and evacuate the place either for some reason so the body count grows quite high. The ending also implies that this is just the beginning and the roll will begin to rise even quicker with the explosion of a nuclear reactor. The heroes really don’t get much of a win in this one.

What holds the film back is how it all feels a bit mean spirited the whole time. Morlar continues to murder person after person with no real repercussions. Nobody ever does anything about it and I’d say that the flashbacks were pretty unnecessary. Even the Landlord wasn’t safe as he got thrown into this for some reason or other. Throw in the fact that he was basically unstoppable and it all feels pretty futile for the heroes the whole time.

Brunel is an okay main character. I do think he started to get convinced a little too easily though. He did a good job of trying to get the information the whole time although he definitely didn’t make things easy on Zonfield since he kept delaying her actual plans. He also seemed to slightly start getting interested in her by the end which wouldn’t be very professional but the film doesn’t really pursue that so we can roll on with the assumption that no such romance was developing. Zonfield was a pretty solid character who did well in not being intimidated by Morlar the whole time. She continues to press her points and resist his declarations that he had powers. She wasn’t going to believe so easily and she had more reason to than Brunel. Ultimately, once the plane scene happened you can see why she would believe at that point. There wasn’t really any other explanation.

The character cast is pretty small here. You’ve only got the main characters and a sidekick who’s also around. So this is a very character driven movie as we learn more and more about Morlar. The film does decide not to try and make Morlar sympathetic which is probably a good idea because that would have been very hard to believe. It does mean that we have a lot of scenes just focusing on the villain murdering people though which doesn’t make for very enjoyable moments. There isn’t a lot of fun to be had in the movie and the climax with the church being destroyed does drag on as I mentioned. The film isn’t particularly violent although those scenes do have some intense moments.

Overall, The Medusa Touch wasn’t a good movie. It could have certainly been worse, but throwing in an actual Medusa would have been a good idea in my opinion. It would have been a better villain. I would have liked to have seen more detective work in the present. The present scenes were the most interesting ones and if the film had stayed there more I think that could have worked out quite nicely. You could have a few characters giving Brunel the run around the whole time as he narrows the suspects. The problem with only having 3 characters for the whole movie is that it does make it very easy for you to figure out who the murderer is early on.

Overall 4/10

Punch-Out!! Review

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It’s time to look at the original Punch-Out game. It’s always good to see where these various Super Smash Bros fighters originally came from. I played through the remake version for the Wii a while back so now it’s time to see if the original holds up. I’d definitely say that it does although some of the opponents are pretty crazy. Good luck taking them down without the rewind feature. The special abilities are pretty creative and couple that with the story and you’ve got yourself a pretty fun NES game.

The goal of course is to get Little Mac to the title of World Champion. To do that you will have to battle your way through 3-4 different circuits and really start to take names. Each match has 3 rounds and you need to either beat the opponent with a really solid counter hit or drain all of his health 3 times. Keep in mind that you will need to do this before the 3 minutes are up or else it will go to time and the referee always picks the defending fighter. That means the deck is stacked against Little Mac, but that’s just the way he likes it. When things are at their bleakest is when he steps up and shows the world what’s up.

The controls are pretty simple. You can punch with your left or your fight, you can do a high punch with either, and you can dodge side to side. There’s also an option to block by holding down. Don’t just start punching all crazy like though or you’ll run out of hearts which leaves you stunned for quite a long time. That’s a good way to lose a fight but there aren’t really any other benefits to doing that. You want to keep the opponents honest, but not at the expense of the match. What you want to do is wait for the opponent to launch a move and then counter with one of your own. Sometimes that means attacking right before the opponent connects or dodging and then attacking. You’ll have to find out through trial and error here.

I will say that the toughest super attack to deal with in my opinion is the tornado of doom. The villain spins around in a circle really quickly and attacks you around 5 times or sometimes even more. You have to block each hit by blocking and then letting go real quick. The tough part is that this still deals damage so if you were already pretty low then you will not survive such a combo. Sometimes ironically the best thing to do is let the opponent KO you because it will end their super attack a lot sooner and this way you will still have some time left on the board. The timer is actually your biggest enemy here and you should make sure you don’t forget that.

One thing that helps to make the game feel a lot more thorough than some of the others that have popped up is how your coach gives you little tips and quotes between rounds. The villains also talk a bit which is cool because it gives the game more of a plot beyond the ole “defeat them all” kind of moments. This feels more like a first party Nintendo game and I can see why people loved Nintendo from the start. Their games just did seem to have an extra dimension of effort and content behind them that the rivals just didn’t have. You couldn’t get that Nintendo seal of quality on just about anything. Punch-Out is one game out of many that really benefited from this.

Overall, Punch-Out!! is a really fun game. As with most of the other titles here at the time there isn’t a lot to do, but the gameplay is fun which is what counts. You can probably clear all of the levels in under 2 hours but it’ll have been a fun two hours. Factor in that you can play this game for free on the Nintendo Switch Online and you are in for a pretty great time. I’m definitely up for a new installment on the Switch someday.

Overall 6/10

Why Black Clover is the best weekly manga/ongoing anime right now

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It’s time to take a look at why Black Clover is the best weekly manga on the block and also why the anime is so amazing. Clover started out with humble beginnings. I only knew one person who was with it from the very start and recommended it quite highly. Initially there was a good amount of push back against the series as fans of the big titles of yesteryear feared its coming. Black Clover was mixing together a lot of ideas from older titles like Naruto and giving them a new spin. Make no mistake though, Black Clover had a great start right from the jump.

For the anime it was clear that it would be amazing from the first episode which looked spectacular and still holds up. The characters were engaging and the whole thing was interesting. The pacing and directing was on point so you were excited to see what would happen next. The world setup is excellent and the cast of characters have gotten better and better as time went on. The series isn’t literally perfect as it still loses out on best manga of all time to Megaman NT Warrior and then One Punch Man, but it is quickly cementing itself as one of the biggest titles. It’s certainly the best of the modern big 3 of Shounen Jump.

Quality rivalry

One area that really works out well in Black Clover is the rival dynamic between Yuno and Asta. Unlike some Shounen rivalries there aren’t any bitter feelings between the two. They both want to be the Wizard King and see each other as worthy rivals in this quest. Both of them continue to get more and more power ups as they rise through the charts to the point where I would consider both of them to be stronger than the Captains at this point in time. Given how powerful the latest villains are I see more power ups in the near future as well. It’s a great rivalry and both of them have gotten to save the other a few times at this point so it’s pretty balanced. For the record, I’d pick Asta to beat Yuno right now if they were to fight.

A Powerful Heroine

Next up, a strong point in the series is how Noelle has remained relevant. In a lot of these big action titles the heroine is quickly left in the dust when it comes to power levels. Sakura Haruno in Naruto was left in the dust as early as the Zabuza arc where she was unable to do anything against Haku while the other two put up pretty big fights. Her first real big fight wouldn’t be until her match-up with Sasori but even there she had a ton of help. Fiddletwix of Anime Madhouse recently wrote a great article depicting what I mean with this. Then in the final battle of the series with the trio fighting once more she did put up a reasonable fight but you never really got the feeling that she caught the others. I’ll give her some props regardless, but that’s 72 volumes in.

Then you have Nami in One Piece who isn’t really meant to be a fighter. That doesn’t take away from the fact that she is significantly weaker than Zoro and Luffy. Finally you have Bleach which is an amazing title but you have to admit that Orihime doesn’t fight much. You could make the case that Rukia should be counted in which case she does put up a better effort. Kubo gave her a fair shake as she had her own share of battles and even took down an Espada. That series is the closest to Clover in this regard. Clover still stands on its own though by giving Noelle quite a few super forms keeping her in league with Yuno and Asta. While she may not be quite as powerful as those two, she has handled her share of battles flawlessly and even saved Asta on occasion. In her Valkyrie armor we don’t yet know how powerful she is, but she can hold her own in a fight. Right now if she were to team up with Asta and Yuno she could do so proudly and fight as an equal.

Humor is on point

While you’re likely here for the fight scenes humor is also very important in any series. You want the humor to be on point so you can laugh along with the characters and I’m happy to report that Black Clover pulls this off as well. The “Haha” character is great and Asta is always the best character for comic relief scenes. I like the way he is drawn with stars for eyes in various scenes and a lot of his humor comes from the fact that he never lets things to get to him and can be a bit oblivious. He just wants to keep on training through everything and even uses these moves to get villains to submit to him. This is easily one of the funniest titles out there which works as a great contrast to the epic action scenes as well. I guess what I’m getting at here is that Black Clover is a very versatile series and one that succeeds at everything it does. It’s an easy 9/10 series.

Now, does Black Clover have any weaknesses? Sure, no series is completely perfect right? In the most literal sense nothing can ever be perfect because if you look hard enough everything has flaws. For Clover, I’m not a fan of quite a few of the Black Bulls. I don’t really care for Charmy, Gordon, Grey, or Finral. Finral has gotten a little better as the series has gone on, but the others haven’t really worked for me. That being said, all of the latest members of the Bulls have been quite solid and each new addition makes the team that much better. Maybe those other characters will rise up for me soon and even if they don’t we have enough great characters to hold things up rather well.

So if you haven’t started Black Clover yet then you really need to change that. Whether you pick up the manga or the anime you’re in for a blast. It’s quite impressive how far the series has come and I’m ready to say that it is one of the best Shounen Jump titles out there. The action scenes are incredible both in the manga in the anime. A standout for sure is the Yuna and Asta vs Licht battle which goes all out. The animators in the series aren’t afraid to go all out and be a bit experimental with the battles as well. While Asta vs Ladros is the only one that didn’t work for me as it got too experimental, it’s still cool how the series is able to change styles so readily. Different episodes look like they’re done by completely different studios which takes a lot of talent. At its best this is one of the best animated titles out there. Things can only continue to go up from here. I could keep on gushing about how awesome Black Clover is, but you get the idea. It’s a series that you have to experience first hand.